What Happens in Amsterdam

Chapter Thirteen

Thirteen

I wake to an apartment covered in Post-it notes.

Koelkast is scribbled on a yellow square stuck to the refrigerator. Wasbak on the sink. Hond on George Costanza’s collar, along with dozens of others, tiny neon scraps of paper looking like it rained confetti.

All in Wouter’s handwriting—small, precise letters.

“Wouter,” I say, and then I can’t think of any other words. Not in English, and not in Dutch. It’s incredibly sweet, the fact that he did all of this for me, and he’s leaning expectantly against the kitchen counter like he’s worried I may not like it—when nothing could be further from the truth.

“I’m not quite done.” He jots something on the pad of Post-its, peels it off, and sticks it right on the tip of my nose.

He lingers in front of me for a moment longer than he should, his citrus scent much too powerful for eight o’clock in the morning. That soap company really ought to change their recipe. I imagine him waking up early, getting the idea in the shower, tapping the Sharpie on his chin while he decided which words to include in my vocabulary lesson.

Once he steps back, I reach to pull off the Post-it with a slightly shaky hand.

Vrouw , it says.

Wife.

“Ha,” I say, trying to ignore the strange tug in my chest. “Believe it or not, that was one of the first ones I learned.”

What happened in Culemborg threw my mind into chaos. Wouter coaching me through that asthma attack only made him more attractive, like learning the hot jock has a secret heart of gold. I need to see him doing something entirely unappealing. Kicking a baby lamb. Winning a hot-dog-eating contest. Losing a hot-dog-eating contest.

We haven’t talked about the kiss, and the simple explanation is that it didn’t mean anything. It was chaste. Brief. Just for show. Unfortunately, my lizard brain can’t stop replaying those few seconds his lips were on mine.

We are a ping-pong game of off-limits—my house, and now his. And it isn’t that I want him to be on -limits…it’s that I can’t figure out why I devote so much time to thinking about it. He hurt you , I always remind myself, begging that lizard brain to listen to logic, because our only-on-paper marriage has no room for complication.

I thought the heartbreak had healed, a wound scarred over by force and then by time. Now I realize all those years were just a temporary salve, because being in his presence, knowing how he makes his tea and where he stores his toothbrush, replaces all the mystery with a fierce ache—not of wanting him now but of wanting what we could have had.

Quiet weekend mornings like this: something I didn’t even have the range to dream about.

Then, as Wouter warned, there’s the fact that the apartment needs a bit of work. I set my mug on the counter and open up one of the kitchen cabinets—and the handle comes off in my hand.

“Ah, shit,” Wouter says when I hold it up. “Fixed that a few months ago. I’ll try to take care of it after work next week.”

“I could do it, if you want.”

He waves this off, passes me a mug of tea. “Nah, I don’t want you to have to worry about it.”

What I don’t say: that I like this place, and I want to put the same kind of care into it that he does.

Then again, it isn’t going to be mine forever.

I take a seat at the table and add sugar to my tea. Today I planned a surprise, wholly platonic outing for us, and later we’re meeting up with his friends. He asked me a dozen times if I was comfortable with it—they’ve been badgering him, but he hasn’t wanted to throw me to the wolves. The thrill of finally getting to know the people he spends his free time with was almost immediately canceled out by the fact that they don’t want to meet the real version of me.

They want to meet Danika Dorfman, Wouter’s wife. His long-lost love.

“You want some hagelslag?” Wouter asks, still rummaging around in the kitchen.

“Are those the little sprinkles?”

With his hair shower-damp and face unshaven again, he looks so soft, this side of him that isn’t ready to face the world just yet. There’s even a smudge of Sharpie on the side of one palm. “I haven’t had them in years, but I was inspired at the market yesterday.” He holds up a box and gives it a shake, mouth tilting into a smile. “I figured you wouldn’t say no to sprinkles for breakfast. There’s a lot of debate on the proper way to make it,” he continues, pulling out two pieces of wheat bread Post-it-noted volkoren and spreading butter onto them with the utmost concentration. “But don’t listen to anyone else. The butter is nonnegotiable—that’s how the sprinkles stay put. And you shouldn’t fold the bread, either, or it’ll get everywhere.”

He upends the box of hagelslag, raining chocolate sprinkles over the two slices. Then he passes one to me.

“Twelve out of ten,” I say after biting into it. “Absolutely inspired. What will the Dutch think of next?”

“I’m almost scared to ask how your teeth are when sugar is seventy percent of your diet.”

I bare them at him in my widest grin. “Never had a cavity.”

—

Amsterdam-Noord is a northern slice of the city across from the IJ River—pronounced eye , and I know this only because I too-confidently said “I-J River” when we got off the ferry a few minutes ago. Ahead of us is A’DAM Tower, a skyscraper with a giant swing perched on the edge of the building. Not where we’re going, but it’s the closest I’ve been to it so far, and it confirms that you could not pay me enough money to do that.

This area used to be mostly industrial, but now it’s more of an up-and-coming neighborhood, with unique restaurants and breweries in converted warehouses—and plenty of art.

“I’ve never been here,” Wouter says when we get to the STRAAT Museum, mouth kicking up just slightly, like he’s trying to hide his excitement. “Two months in Amsterdam, and you’re already showing me something new.”

The museum is devoted to street art and graffiti, murals splashed across concrete walls and suspended from high ceilings, and beyond-life-size sculptures made of found objects. We wander through the colorful first room, pausing to read the descriptions beside each piece, but Wouter looks a little uncomfortable, fidgeting with his hands. “Danika…you’ve been settling in okay here, yes?”

“A little late to take everything back if I’m not, isn’t it?” I say. “Hopefully I’m not a terrible roommate?”

“Only when you didn’t tell me my shirt was on inside out before I left for work last week.”

“It was early! I was still waking up,” I protest.

“I just wanted to make sure,” he says, becoming serious again. “It’s a huge change, and I’ve been worried that maybe I haven’t been checking in with you enough. About…everything.”

If there’s anything Wouter’s good at, it’s checking in with me, and I’m never not grateful for it. “Obviously it’s an adjustment, but the day-to-day isn’t as hard as I thought it might be. Except for being away from everyone back home.”

“You miss your sister.”

“All the time.” Somehow, saying it makes that stab of homesickness all the more intense, a visceral longing between my ribs. Until I got here, I didn’t realize you could be homesick for a person. “It’s the longest I’ve ever spent away from her, and I’m lucky that she’s a night owl and we can talk with some regularity, but…it’s not the same.”

“Hmm. She sent you an American care package. What if you sent her a Dutch one? You could give her some stroopwafels, some tulip knickknacks, some blue-and-white pottery…and they have Gouda cheese in vacuum-sealed bags that’s safe to travel.” He coughs into his elbow. “Of course you don’t have to replicate, ah, everything she sent. Unless you wanted to.”

“I love that idea. Well—the first part. Thank you,” I say, meaning it. “It’s weird, though. I’ll get the most ridiculous cravings for American food. Like, the other day I was randomly missing Pop-Tarts even though I haven’t had them in years.” We move forward to the next piece of art, a geometric black-and-white optical illusion. “But aside from Pop-Tarts, it’s just hard not to feel like I left things…unfinished, I guess.”

“With your ex?”

That is not at all what I was expecting to hear, and the laugh that bursts out of me is so loud, a few people turn to look at us. “Oh, no. No, no, no. That is most certainly finished. In the most disastrous way possible.”

He lifts his brows as though urging me to continue, eyes bright behind his glasses, and I wish curiosity weren’t so cute on him. I sigh, preparing to tell the whole sordid story.

“We worked together, and we’d been dating for almost a year. And then a few months ago, I got a screenshot from one of my sister’s friends…who’d matched with him on Tinder.”

“No fucking way.”

I nod miserably. “When I confronted him about it, he gave me some bullshit about having forgotten to delete his accounts, even though it showed he’d been active within the past week. He had all these messages, these photos from other women, photos he’d sent them…”

I think back to the shock of those pictures of half-undressed strangers. He was always saying he wanted sexy pictures of me, but I was too afraid they’d end up somewhere I didn’t want them. Even after a year of dating, I didn’t fully trust him.

And yet I’d almost been ready to say I love you —not because I did but because it seemed like I was supposed to. I was pretty sure I could , if I had more time.

After I saw the photos, Jace thought we could still make the relationship work. You said at the beginning that you liked to keep things casual , he said. Maybe we can just do that? But he didn’t understand. I couldn’t go backward, not after I’d already broken all my rules. The cheating had confirmed I wasn’t worth a serious relationship, that I’d been right to keep all the others at a distance.

“Maybe you don’t want to hear all of that,” I say to Wouter.

He takes a step forward, his gaze piercing mine, feeling not dissimilar to the way his fingers pressed into the back of my neck. “Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends.”

We’re so many other things: exes, roommates, husband and wife. Somehow friends feels the most foreign.

“My big fuck-you was sending around his emails to the whole office.” Maybe it was out of character for me, but he’d made me feel so small, so insignificant. I hated that I couldn’t fight back. “We probably shouldn’t have, but we’d sent some…racy stuff to each other while we worked there.” At that, Wouter blushes, and I drop my voice lower. “And then I got fired, while he got promoted last week, according to LinkedIn. The worst part,” I continue, gaining more momentum now, “is that not even my friends were on my side about it. They thought I’d been stupid and impulsive, that I lost the job because of my own bad decision. And…fine, okay, maybe I was. I guess they’ve all grown out of their pettiness, but not me. Guess we’re all supposed to be boring adults now,” I finish, though of course there’s a whole spectrum between boring adult and someone who doesn’t mass-forward their ex’s emails to their whole team.

“As a boring adult,” he says, “I’m on your side here. You’re allowed to be petty at any age.”

“Nah, you’re not boring. You’re conning the Dutch government. If that’s not badass, I don’t know what is.”

Though he allows a small smile at this, his jaw ticks with what I think might be anger toward this man he’s never met. “What a piece of shit. You deserved so much better.”

“Yeah, well. Half-true.”

“You don’t believe that?”

“I told you,” I say, wondering why my voice sounds thinner than it did a second ago, “I haven’t done serious relationships. Clearly I’m not cut out for them.”

We’re standing too close, and I’m sure it’s only because I wanted to keep this conversation both quiet and private, and he needed to be able to hear me. I can see his strawberry lashes almost brushing the lenses of his glasses. And there’s the scent of his soap again, invading my brain.

I back away. Clear my throat. “Besides,” I say, with a flutter of my ring finger, “I’m married now. So I’m off the market.”

We continue making our way through the museum. Not everything is designed to be aesthetically pleasing, and I like that—that messy, rebellious art has a home here. The abstract shapes and the realistic figures, the blocky text and the canvases that look like they’re dripping paint. Wouter spends a while in front of a piece that features a man in gray scale pulling back a curtain to reveal a brightly colored wall of graffitied words bursting to get free.

“I was reading about this one online,” I say, and without even needing to glance at the description: “Martin Whatson, Norwegian artist. He has a whole series of work like this, where he mimics the urban environment in order to contrast it with the vibrant nature of street art.” A sigh slips out. “If only I could get a job spouting obscure facts about Amsterdam.”

“The job search isn’t as fruitful as you’d like?”

I consider this. Are there jobs out there that suit my skill set? Sure. Does a single one of them fill me with anything but dread? That’s a harder question to answer.

“I had a phone interview a couple days ago.” A big tech company based in the US that also has offices in Amsterdam. Maybe I was out of practice, but I stumbled my way through basic questions and ended the call uncertain how I’d ever been hired for anything. “Not sure how well it went.”

“But you’re still looking,” he says, phrasing it not as a question but as a declarative statement. I’m still looking, because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. The reason he married me.

“Of course. I don’t know, maybe I’m just burned out.” I say this half as a joke, so I’m surprised when he responds with pure seriousness.

“You don’t have to brush it off like that. Burnout is very real,” he says. “Here we even have burnout leave.”

I’ve never considered the word before, because the only extended time I ever took off from work was when I checked myself into the hospital. What I don’t tell him is that sometimes I feel rudderless, that it’s almost a scary amount of freedom I have here. There’s nothing but a marriage certificate to catch me if I fall.

“I can tell UX design isn’t your life’s great passion,” he continues. “You used to enjoy everything, though. You tried it all. I liked that about you, that openness you had.”

The words scrape against my skin like gravel. Because maybe he liked that about me for a short time, but once he got back to Amsterdam, he realized that what he liked didn’t matter or that he’d never liked it all that much in the first place.

I have to keep reminding myself he’s no longer the carefree teenager who pushed me up against the wall to kiss me when my parents were downstairs, who showed me sketches of myself I couldn’t believe could be that beautiful.

It’s deeply unfair that all my memories of him are tender, hot, or both.

“When I studied it, I didn’t imagine spending the next forty years doing it,” I say. “For a while I thought I’d study something related to art, but it didn’t feel practical. I mean, I still love museums, and I’ve always spent too much time deciding what to put on my walls, but I never let myself just play the way I used to. Maybe we both thought that we had to give it up and get serious about something else.”

“I miss that.” His voice is so soft, the draft in this warehouse could carry it away. “The playing. The day you moved in and asked about art and I said I had other hobbies…I went upstairs and racked my brain, wondering what other hobbies there really were. When we went to Van Gogh, I realized I hadn’t been to a museum in years. Aside from walking George and getting drinks with friends, the occasional football match…it’s possible I’ve been in a rut.”

I wish that didn’t make my heart ache—it would be so much easier if it didn’t. He had been so starry-eyed and hopeful when I knew him, and the truth is that he returned to what I thought was this fairy-tale country and retreated entirely into himself. Spent his twenties taking care of his father, and when he finally came up for air, the grief must have been the heaviest weight.

Without overthinking, I place my fingertips on his sleeve, give him a quick brush of my thumb. This time, unlike in his mother’s guest room, he doesn’t pull away. “Maybe we could have some hobbies together,” I offer, because I’ve certainly never been a stranger to them. Hobbies are safe. Hobbies are platonic. “We could make art without caring about whether it’s good or not.”

He smiles at this. “I think I’d really like that.” Then he clears his throat, and I drop my hand. “Can I ask you something? I have this work conference next weekend in Bruges—Belgium. It’s only a few hours away by train. I was considering canceling, but then I was thinking, you haven’t been, and Roos is always begging to watch George more often because she’s convinced, probably correctly, that she’s his favorite person. Though you might be giving her a run for her money. And it’s a beautiful city…” Now he’s the one tongue-tied, whipping off his glasses to rub them against his shirt as though hoping it’ll distract from his rambling. And it does, if only because of how soft his face looks without them. “Would you want to come with me?”

“Come…with you? To Belgium? For a physiotherapy conference?” The words rush out before I can overanalyze them. “Absolutely, yes. Let’s go to Belgium.”

“Great,” he says, sounding relieved. “I really think you’ll love it.”

His gaze holds mine a beat too long while my pulse falls into an uncertain rhythm. I try not to think about the constellations I could draw in his pattern of freckles, or how much I like the faint lines on his face he didn’t have at seventeen, the ones with stories I haven’t been around to hear.

There might be something else between us, something either unresolved or wholly new. In this moment, I’m not sure I can tell the difference.

I’m not sure I want to.

—

Wouter reaches for my hand on the way into the bar, and at first I’m so startled by it that I nearly yank my arm away. But then I understand: we’re about to put on another performance.

“Just so you know,” he says, “my friends are going to give me a lot of shit for not introducing you earlier, but that’s just how they express their love.”

“To be clear, I would also be giving a lot of shit if one of my friends got married without telling me.”

It hits me again, that guilt, because he’s the one carrying all the weight. I can’t imagine lying to Phoebe if the situation were reversed. Then again, the real estate market is broken everywhere. Who knows what I’d do if a house like his was on the line?

I thread my fingers through his while we wait for a table with his friends: Sanne, a girl who also grew up on the Prinsengracht; Thomas, a close friend since grade school; Bilal, a college friend whose parents immigrated to Rotterdam from Pakistan when he was a toddler; and Evi, who became part of their friend group when she started dating Thomas.

Thomas, who’s even taller than Wouter with a wave of slicked- back blond hair, claps him on the arm. “Can’t believe you didn’t tell us! We would have thrown you a bachelor party.”

“It was a surprise to us, too,” Wouter says. “But I’m so glad she hit me with her bike, because then we realized we’re just as in love with each other now as we were when we were teenagers.”

“Even more,” I say, reaching for his chin and giving it a little shake in this over-the-top gooey way. We can do this . “I just can’t get enough of this face.”

“So you married me only for my looks?” Wouter asks, mock-offended as he holds a hand to his heart.

I bat my lashes. “What can I say, none of the American boys could do it for me.” I drop his chin and clear my throat, turning back to his friends. “I’m going to apologize for not speaking Dutch. Or at least, for speaking very bad Dutch. I’m taking a class right now, and I could talk you through buying groceries or explaining various symptoms to the doctor, but we haven’t covered casual pub chats yet.”

“Wouter hasn’t been teaching you? What a terrible husband,” Sanne says, with this easy way of ribbing him that can only be achieved by someone who’s been part of your life for that long. She’s effortlessly chic in round glasses and a cropped black jacket, long hair parted in the middle.

“No, no, he’s been…very helpful,” I say, thinking back to the Post-its and the way he massaged his language into my skin. De wervelkolom. Het oor. I could live to be one hundred, learn a dozen other languages, and I’d never forget those words.

When we finally get a table, the booth only has room for four people with a single extra chair, even after we try our best to hunt down another one.

“She can just sit in your lap, yes?” Sanne says, and at first I assume she’s talking to Evi and Thomas.

But her eyes are on Wouter.

She can just sit in your lap .

A normal suggestion for two newlyweds who are madly in love, and exactly the reason I black out for a second.

Wouter rubs at the back of his neck as his eyes find mine, asking with a lift of his brows if that’s okay. If this is part of the ruse neither of us knew we signed up for.

And there is something so earnest about that expression, his forehead wrinkle on full anxious display, something that convinces me sitting in his lap can be a wholly innocent thing instead of the very bad idea it is.

“Right. Of course,” I say, hoping the words sound breezier than they do in my mind, where it’s all anarchy and flashing red lights.

So I slide into the booth and lower myself onto his thighs, about as gingerly as if his friends just suggested I sit on a box of live snakes. One arm comes around my waist, clutching me to him, while the other reaches for his drink.

And then I try to breathe. “You okay?” I ask, fully aware that I am not okay. Because I am in his lap, and nothing about this feels innocent. My ass in his crotch. His hand lightly curved around the wool of my sweater. And he’s warm and sturdy and considerate, the solid wall of his body keeping me upright.

When he lets out a muffled laugh, his breath on the back of my neck makes me shiver. That doesn’t feel innocent, either. “Alles goed.”

I learn what everyone does: Sanne and Thomas both work at a tech company, Evi is an architect, and Bilal is a teacher—“but more importantly, a Feyenoord fan,” he says, gesturing to the beanie he’s wearing with the Rotterdam football club’s logo.

“And for that, we’re all deeply sorry,” Wouter says to a chorus of laughs, and I assume there’s a rivalry with his beloved Ajax.

I want a million more details about all of them, but they have just as many questions for me.

“I need to know how exactly this”—Sanne gestures to the two of us—“works. Wouter, you’re, what, at least twenty centimeters taller?”

Evi gives a suggestive lift of her brows while I choke on my beer. “I love a height difference.”

“We…get creative,” Wouter says, and I can hear the bashful smile in his voice. “It’s not as hard as you might think.”

Bilal holds up his glass. “Nah, I thought that was the whole point?” he says, which makes Sanne and Evi groan.

At the very least, sitting in his lap means Wouter can’t see me blush. We get creative . I wonder if he’s remembering the two of us in the back seat all those years ago, how difficult it was to find a position that didn’t have his head bumping against the roof of the car. The rare times we had the house to ourselves, he’d tuck me up against him in my bed like I was the perfect size. “I love the way you fit right here,” he’d say.

If he can play the game, then so can I, so I give his friends my wickedest grin. “And it never seems to matter when I’m on top.”

Given where I’m currently positioned, this sparks some laughs and a hoot from Evi. Even Wouter joins in, which means I can feel the vibrations against my back, the puffs of air on my neck.

Thomas holds up his hands. “Okay, okay, let’s keep it family friendly.”

“We’re so curious about you ,” Evi continues. “We’ve heard about you from Wouter, of course, but what brought you to Amsterdam? And how do you like it?”

I give them the story Wouter and I decided on. I want to be the charming, fascinating girl his friends can believe captured his heart, but I’m deeply distracted by the fact that his thumb is a small swipe from my navel, and that two pairs of jeans is barely any fabric at all. Every time I shift, I’m aware of his sharp inhales and slow exhales, like he’s trying to prevent a certain situation from rising up as a result of having a woman in his lap. Surely any attractive girl in this position might test his self-control.

And yet despite all the anxiety and the intense and unexpected glute workout, because I still haven’t let my body relax—it feels good , sitting in his lap like this. To be this close after thirteen years.

“Sorry,” I say when he takes another rough breath, and I wonder if I should recommend the 4-7-8 exercise. “Am I hurting you?”

“No, no,” he says quickly. “You’re fine, lief.”

“What are the biggest differences between America and the Netherlands, do you think?” Sanne asks, and I’m grateful for the subject change.

“Wouter’s going to get mad if I bring up the sinks,” I say, which draws another round of laughter. I can feel him shake with it beneath me. “The public transportation, obviously. And the air quality here is much better.”

It’s true—with the exception of that stress-induced asthma attack in Culemborg, I’ve felt healthier than I have in ages. Long walks around the city don’t aggravate my lungs the way short ones did in LA. I never imagined I could have this kind of lifestyle, and it’s exciting to realize that I’m capable of it, that my personality wasn’t set in stone. That even at thirty, I can change.

“The desserts aren’t number one?” Wouter asks.

“I was getting to it!” I say, giving his ribs a gentle jab of my elbow. “I think poffertjes would break America. It’s a good thing they don’t know about them.”

“Evi and I went to New York a few years ago,” Thomas says, and she holds a dramatic hand to her heart.

“Still obsessed. It was an architect’s dream,” she says. “And the subway there was pretty great. Smelled awful, though.”

“We have maybe three cities with decent public transportation, where you could legitimately get by without a car. But the vast majority are still car dependent—and it’s not any single person’s fault for driving one. It’s just the way the cities were laid out.”

“And everything is so big.” Thomas rolls his eyes even as he says it. “Yes, I know that’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. I couldn’t believe the size of the portions you’d get at a restaurant.”

“LA, too,” Wouter says. “Every time we went to dinner with your family, we brought home leftovers.”

“I do love leftovers, but you’re right. The US always has so much of everything. You can get exhausted by the number of options.” I take a sip of beer. “When I go to the grocery store here, sometimes there’s only one brand of each thing. Like…diced tomatoes.”

Bilal looks perplexed. “Why do you need more than one brand of diced tomatoes? You just get whatever they have at Appie.”

“In America, you can’t set foot in a store without someone rushing over and asking if they can help you,” Wouter says. “It took me a while to get used to it. I thought it was sarcastic at first—but it really isn’t. They genuinely want to help.”

“Here we find that very annoying,” Sanne says.

Evi nods. “If someone comes up to me and asks if I need anything, I’m like, ‘Uh-huh, sure, thank you,’ and then never ask.”

“That’s one of the stereotypes about Americans, isn’t it? That they can seem a little fake?” Sanne says, but there’s no animosity in her voice. “There’s more small talk. We don’t do that as much here.” She clears her throat, putting on an exaggerated American accent that sounds more like Cher in Clueless than any actual American I’ve met. “Oh my gosh, how are you? I love your shirt. Where did you get it?”

I can’t help laughing. “But what if I really do love their shirt?”

“Even the American chains are a little different,” Bilal says. “It was a big deal when we got the pumpkin spice latte over here. People lined up for hours. It was madness.”

“Look, we don’t fuck around about pumpkin spice in the US, either.”

This leads to a discussion about Starbucks’ holiday drinks, and the ones they have in the Netherlands that they don’t have in the US—like the stroopwafel latte, which I fully intend to order the moment it hits the menu. Then Sanne and Evi get up to use the bathroom, and Bilal and Thomas head to the bar for another pitcher and a couple more baskets of bitterballen.

With more space in the booth, I expect Wouter to relax his grip. The alcohol is already messing with me, amplifying some of my senses while muting others. So when he leans in close to my ear and brushes aside my hair, I feel his whisper in every part of my body. “You smell so good,” he says, his breath tickling the small hairs on the back of my neck.

My eyes fall shut, my imagination running wild, and I let my muscles go for the first time all evening. If he can sense that I’m giving him my full weight now, he only reacts by sliding me slightly backward, as though to rebalance us.

If we were alone right now, I might test our limits, press myself harder against his lap. Tease him, lift my hips for a moment before sinking back down. I wonder if his hand around my waist would tighten. What other things he might whisper in my ear.

His mouth is so close to my neck, close enough to imagine the slick heat of it against my skin.

“You a lightweight?” I ask. “Because you’re, like, eight feet tall, which I think is about five hundred centimeters. Give or take a hundred.”

“Maybe.” His nose grazes the top of my ear. “Or I’m just very, very stupid.” Then, before I can process that: “Finally!” he says as Bilal returns to the table triumphantly holding up another chair. The outburst startles me to my feet, and Wouter practically leaps out of the booth with me. “I mean—Danika’s probably eager to have her own seat.”

“I was actually having a great time.” I give him a suggestive look that might be just for his friends. As I hoped, they let out a whoop as his cheeks redden.

This isn’t real , I remind myself. Whatever I’m feeling for him is warped by proximity and lies, nothing more.

To drown out any lingering doubts, I reach for the pitcher.

At the end of the night, after more drinks than I can count, I wave a wobbly hand around the group. “This has been…gezellig.” I overpronounce it, giving each syllable far too much emphasis.

Still, all of them light up at the word, and Sanne mimes applauding. “Let’s do this again soon,” she says, giving me a hug. Then she whispers in my ear, “You two are so cute together. He seems absolutely obsessed with you.”

All the way home, I marvel at how he must be a much better actor than I am to be able to communicate something like that when I’m not even looking.